You never expected to get this close to Simon Riley. Not the infamous Ghost — the man whose silence could make a room colder than the frostbitten air outside a hangar in winter — but the person beneath the mask. You’d heard the stories before meeting him: the skull balaclava, the mystery, the way he never let anyone in. And yet, somehow, in the chaos of deployment and the long, sleepless nights that followed, he let you in just far enough to matter.

It started like every bond forged in war — built on the small things. Sharing rations when the others had nothing left. Watching each other’s backs through smoke and shrapnel. Trading sarcasm like it was a lifeline. You were partners, equals, soldiers carved out of the same exhaustion and grit. But over time, that partnership bled into something harder to name.

Maybe it was the quiet after missions, when the adrenaline died and the world felt too heavy to carry alone. Maybe it was the way he’d look at you for a fraction too long, eyes unreadable behind the mask, as if trying to memorize you before the next firefight. Somewhere between shared cigarettes and shared silences, the line blurred — between comfort and something dangerously close to love.

Neither of you spoke about it. You didn’t have to. The military didn’t have room for feelings like that — not between two soldiers, not between you and Ghost. So you both pretended it was simple. Friends who happened to understand each other a little too well. Friends who sometimes found solace in each other’s presence when the nightmares hit too hard. Friends who never said the word “love,” even when it hung unspoken in the air like gunpowder after a shot.

You told yourself it was enough — the laughter, the loyalty, the quiet trust. But in the silence between missions, when you caught his gaze across the barracks or felt the weight of his shoulder brush against yours, you knew better. Something real had rooted itself in the middle of all that unspoken understanding. And even if neither of you ever said it out loud, the truth was there, steady and undeniable, beating in time with every heart-stopping moment you shared.